Hello Mines!

Productivity is something we can take for granted when working with office tools. For many, Microsoft Office has been a go-to for decades for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. With the prevalence of alternative productivity tools in use in K-12 schools, universities, and industry, your preference may very well be the Google Suite, which also includes word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. If you fall into that latter category, Mines may be a frustrating place to be productive, driving you away from Mines-supported tools to personal Gmail and Google accounts, possibly in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) data privacy rules.

You may have found that if a colleague from another university invites you to Google Meet for a video call or shares a Google Doc to collaborate, your Mines account does not work. Meet and Docs will try to log you in with your personal Google account, creating an often-unwelcome intersection between your personal and work/student lives.

With this in mind, later this year, Mines Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) will be turning on the Google Suite for Education, giving direct access with your @mines.edu account to Google Meet, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

For those who would also like Gmail and Calendar turned on, watch for a survey regarding your preferred email and calendaring platform in the coming weeks. The results could influence the long-term direction of Mines.

For the time being, however, only one email/calendar system will work for the mines.edu domain, so we will stay with Microsoft for email and calendar.

Your input is appreciated and can be shared directly with me at andrewjmoore@mines.edu.

Thanks,
Andrew, CIO (Chief Information Officer)